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Ok, so I'm trying to sort out a bit of a mess for my sister who is a self-employed health professional.
She has (had) a basic website with email for her practice. She's totally un-tech-savvy and was sold this over the phone about a year or two ago. The company cold-called her and offered an 'all in one' solution. Design, domain name, hosting, email and top google ranking for an upfront fee and then a recurring monthly fee.
Anyway, she clearly wasn't happy with their service or the design of her site. I don't have the complete picture, but it all got a bit nasty when she tried to cancel, with them carrying on taking payments, and my sister getting a lawyer involved etc etc ad nauseum...
All the while, the site's been up and functioning. Until yesterday. Now there's a blank page with a 'site inactive, contact support' message.
Now there are two issues here: The first is that I've agreed to build her another site as she was never happy with the old one anyway. However, I need the domain name. A whois search shows the domain name expired on the 4th. How do I go about purchasing this? Is there a grace period in order for them to be able to re-register it if needed?
The second issue is access to all her emails from the webmail account associated with whoever this company hosted with. She's not backed up all the very important emails of course, and now when she tries to log in she's getting a password not recognised. Could this company have changed her password, preventing access as leverage in the dispute, or is it simply a case of the hosting having been cancelled? If so, how would she go about retrieving these emails? The webmail is something called 'outitgoes'. There's no contact information anywhere?
Thanks
Is there a grace period in order for them to be able to re-register it if needed?
Yes but I can't remember how long it is.... just checked..... 90 days after expiry date.
Emails: Now that's a tricky one. In cancelling the service she has also cancelled the email service, so as the company are now p****d at her for cancelling she's going to struggle to get her emails. She needs to speak to the company.
That said, I would have thought that the domain name was in her name and just linked to the company's servers..... so it should be possible to transfer it to a new provider.
Maybe she can set up a gmail account and set that to collect her any emails to her domain (username and password would be required). Gmail can also be set so that emails come from you@yourdomain.
Sounds to me like she is shafted.
But there is normally an opportunity for the existing owner of a URL to re-buy it if it has lapsed, no idea of the timeline for this though, so just keep trying to buy it.
But why on earth didn't she ask to have the URL registered in her name (assuming she didn't, the OP sounds like she didn't)? We normally ask clients if they would prefer us to do that as a matter of course.
In cancelling the service she has also cancelled the email service, so as the company are now p****d at her for cancelling she's going to struggle to get her emails. She needs to speak to the company.
I'm not sure she ever did cancel, because she couldn't. Hence the ongoing dispute.
I would have thought that the domain name was in her name and just linked to the company's servers
Nope. A whois search reveals it's registered to some random woman in Manchester. Just a postal address unfortunately. Though its status shows 'up for renewal'.
But why on earth didn't she ask to have the URL registered in her name? We normally ask clients if they would prefer us to do that as a matter of course.
Good question. Massive facepalm when she told me about it. I guess this whole interweb thing is like a foreign language to some people. And this firm seemed attractive because she didn't have to think about it/do anything.
So is she still paying for the service? If she is (and the company is still operating) then she could have a claim if they play ball. If she stopped paying (which surely is very easy to do) then she had broken the terms of any contract so they could do what they want I guess.
I don't think so. I think she won some kind of case against them, and now they're not on talking terms 🙂 Apparently they keep passing on the debt to collection agencies and she has to keep wheeling out this 'judgement' to see them off. We decided to just go with a .com for now and keep trying to buy back her .co.uk. We thought if we asked them for it they could refuse out of spite, or ask silly money. Though she is going to write to them about getting her emails.
To be honest, I've done websites for people myself, and know it can go on forever, so at first was sceptical. But I've done some googling of this firm and the bad reviews speak for themselves.
Name and shame...
If its a UK domain, you can try the Nominet dispute resolution service. http://www.nominet.org.uk/disputes
might be able to grab the domain via nominet dispute / resolution procedures?
never tried it, but i'm sure there must be a domain reg. expert on the forum.
email is probably a goner.
even if using gmail etc. alwas make sure it gets backed up on a real machine somewhere, somehow (just use thunderbird and set it to access gmail or wherever via imap).
Thanks guys, will look into Nominet.
Lesson learnt regarding the email account probably.